Education ministers urged to focus on efficiency, results

Education experts say Friday's COAG meeting of education ministers should look for more efficiencies and stronger results from schools, and that yet another NAPLAN review commissioned on Thursday runs the risk of being the "death by a thousand cuts".

It's less than a fortnight since the latest NAPLAN results show negligible to nil improvement in reading, writing and numeracy since 2008. Supplied

The COAG meeting comes in the same week OECD data showed that Australian teachers are among the highest paid in the world, and less than a fortnight since the latest NAPLAN results showed negligible to nil improvement in reading, writing and numeracy since 2008.

Education program director at the Centre for Independent Studies, Fiona Mueller, said COAG needed to review the overall picture.

"We spend a massive amount of taxpayers' funds on school education. It's significantly more than the OECD average," Dr Mueller said.

"But to get improvement in student performance we need to look at the whole package, not just one thing in isolation.

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"That means thinking about teacher education, national academic standards. leadership in schools, assessment practices and what our specific goals are for young Australians.

"We lack a nationally agreed set of standards at all levels of education. Which core subjects and skills must be mastered before students leave school and what can the states and territories design to work with that?"

"We lack a nationally agreed set of standards at all levels of education," says Fiona Mueller from the Centre for Independent Studies. Emma Hillier

On Thursday state education ministers in Queensland, NSW and Victoria went around COAG and the federal education minister and commissioned their own review of NAPLAN.

The federal minister, Dan Tehan, and his predecessor Simon Birmingham resisted calls for a review of the test, saying the value of NAPLAN was proven.

Queensland commissioned its own NAPLAN review in 2018 and COAG ministers set up reviews of how the online test works and the reporting of results on My School.

NSW's Liberal education minister, Sarah Mitchell, said she is a firm believer in diagnostic testing, but NAPLAN in its current format is "no longer fit-for purpose".

“In 2019, it is clear to me that a diagnostic test should be on demand, it must be linked to the curriculum, it must focus on student growth and it must test informative writing.”

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Nick Reece – former senior policy adviser to Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and now principal fellow with the Melbourne School of Government at Melbourne University – said there was a "tsunami of NAPLAN reviews".

All the world-leading education systems are moving towards data-driven policymaking.

— Nick Reece, University of Melbourne

"I think everyone agrees there is scope for a review but so many reviews begins to undermine the basic principals that sit behind NAPLAN which are sound and are driving improvements in Australian schools," Mr Reece said.

"All the world-leading education systems are moving towards data-driven policymaking. For Australia to get off that train would be an act of national self harm."

Mr Reece said critics of NAPLAN should not lose sight of the fact that "mums and dads appreciate NAPLAN" because it shows how their children are going.

Dr Mueller, who is also the former director of curriculum at the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, said NAPLAN was highly important and no one should think all the reviews meant there was something wrong with it.

"I stress that a standardised assessment of this kind is absolutely sensible. I'm unequivocal about that," she said.

"It's so important it should be improved to make it as good as can be.

"Any review should look at setting much higher academic standards to make sure it is genuinely aligned to the curriculum.

The COAG education ministers' meeting on Friday is due to receive a report on this year's online testing, which had a repeat of last year's broadband connection problems.

The development of alternative supplies of critical minerals, as well as other joint efforts by Australia and the United States to address Chinese influence in the region, will dominate talks in Washington.